I have a detached garage about 75' from my house and I'm trying to find out if a powerline network would be a good solution to expand my dsl connection since my wifi signal from my router doesnt quite reach.
My main power feed from the utility pole comes into a main breaker box outside the house and then splits, one line goes to my breaker box inside the house and the other line goes to my well pump/garage. Will i be able to use the powerline connection between my house and the garage?
I have been installing AV500s since they have come out. One project I did was an Historic Site with eleven buildings. I found out that I could run from 100 to 200 feet (wire feet) and get good connectivity.
If you have with the pump generating to much noise on the line I would install a power-line filter as close to the pump as you can. They are available from an electrical supply house. If your pump 130Vac you can get a plugin filter that goes between the pump and it's outlet. Just make sure you get one rated for your pump's current draw.
Since you are planing on using it in your garage and most electrical codes require the outlets to be GFI protected here is another tip I have used to increase network speed. Plug the Power-line Network adapter in to the garage door circuit since they are not required to be GFI protected. I have found, depending on the GFI manufacture, I can get an extra 25% increase.
Last year we installed six units in a municipal swimming pool pump rooms where there was to much RF interference for their automation control system.
I just bought 2 AV200's for the same purpose in a similar config. Our power feed goes into the house's breaker box, then there's a subfeed that heads out to the garage. wire feet is ~20 from the first AV200 to the house panel, <75ft from house panel to garage panel, and 25 or so to the garage door opener plug where the other AV200 is. i can't get any connection. There's no surge protection of any kind in line.
Admittedly, all I've done so far is hook them up in adjacent rooms back in the house to verify they work, but I don't have a lot of flexibility on where in the garage they go. Going to also try swapping the garage outlet to another breaker on the other leg of the 220v main feed to maybe help things a little.
Unfortunately - there is no way to realistically estimate how a powerline device is going to work in a given environment - you need to get the devices, preferrably from a vendor that will allow a no questions asked return, and test them.
It's also important to be aware that any changes in the electrical environment, not just in your home, but also your neighbors' (any building fed from the same dstribution transformer), can affect the performance of the powerline network.
It's perhaps worth bearing in mind that an ethernet cable is just 0.25in. in diameter and can be run up to 100 metres.
all I've done so far is hook them up in adjacent rooms back in the house to verify they work, but I don't have a lot of flexibility on where in the garage they go. Going to also try swapping the garage outlet to another breaker on the other leg of the 220v main feed to maybe help things a little.
An update.. I wired in an outlet right at the breaker box in the garage and was able to get a 11m/15m connection. I then tried moving the breaker for this outlet to the other leg of the 220 feed, and viola! 49m/75m speed reported.
I just ran a 50' cat5 from the AV200 to the AP (centrally located in the garage), and everything is working great now.
My usage is just for sharing the 3M DSL connection we have here, so I can't comment about anything more bandwidth intensive.
Though my setup has no interference other than my own stuff (we have our own transformer on the property too as there's no other houses close), I'd say the number of hops made it a challenge for the equipment, but it works with no noticable lag. ping times are 3ms.
I should add, I was a little off on the path the signal has to take...
Wire feet is: 1- ~25' from the first AV200 to the subpanel that outlet is wired into, through the breaker. 2- 3' to the 100A breaker for that feed. 3- Through the buss in the main box. 4- Through another 100A breaker for the garage subfeed. 5- ~75' from house panel to garage sub-panel. 6- Through the 100A breaker in the subpanel, then through a 20A breaker. 7- 3' to the outlet where the other AV200 is.
So yeah.. A little over 100' of wire, but also 5 circuit breakers!
Having a large number of breakers is not necessarily an issue - in fact - assuming the breakers to be in good working condition, it's not an issue at all.
There are a lot of misconceptions about powerline networking and the number of breakers and or circuits is just one of them. There is no requirement or maximum number of breakers that you can have between powerline devices, and there is no requirement for them to be on the same circuit.
In a traditional power distribution system, where there are multiple homes being fed from a single transformer, powerline devices will work between those homes, so you're talking main breakers, sub main breakers and then the individual circuit breakers in each home. You can have devices separated by half a dozen breakers and several hundred feet of wire and they will still communicate with one another - in fact - this is so common that powerline devices have to be built with encryption so that users can prevent their neighbours from getting on their network.
The biggest problem with powerline networking, the one that makes it so unpredictable (and yes, unreliable), is it's susceptability to interference - and that's where you luck out by having a dedicated transformer.
Think about it from this angle - your powerline device is essentially a radio transciever which uses the powerline instead of an antenna - all electrical appliances connected to that powerline generate some level of EMI/RFI (electromagnetic interference/radio frequency interference) which is being "wired" directly to your radio transciever - it doesn't take much interference to completely obliterate the desired signal.
